Abstract
WITH the growing application of matrix algebra, especially in the factorial analysis of psychological data, there is an increasing demand for a machine that will multiply matrices. Such a machine has now been produced in the United States by the International Business Machines Corporation, assisted by a research grant from the Carnegie Foundation, and is described in Psychometrika (5, 289; 1940). It uses an electric circuit in which one set of connexions is made by special marks on record sheets, one for each row in the first matrix, and the other set by plug wires corresponding to a column of the second matrix. The product of a matrix with any number of rows and up to 15 columns by a second matrix consisting of a single column is thus found, the results being read off on a meter. If the second matrix has more than one column, one column at a time is dealt with. The machine is in use in the psychological laboratory of Dr. L. L. Thurstone of Chicago, and the results appear to be accurate to two significant figures.
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A Matrix Machine. Nature 148, 83 (1941). https://doi.org/10.1038/148083a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/148083a0